lawyers of the nation by the name of floyd abrams who has just released a wonderful book by critics are raving about call a friend of the court on the front lines with the first amendment. and what we will be doing is a 40 minute conversation interview he has kindly agreed to open it up to audience questions said that many people have a chance have a chance to question one of the greatest lawyers. so he took kickstart it, could you please tell us out this very interesting book is receiving these critical and reviews came about. >> first, i got a call from a professor at the university of washington law school. he told me he was interested in doing a book about my views about the first amendment,

different sorts of cases, al ipod backcourts movements analyzed the first amendment cases. he asked me for speeches i had given in to arguments that i had engaged in and the like. and i sent many more than he wanted, i think. but certainly many more than he thought that i had. he coming up and said, have an idea. what did you publish this. you put together what you think are the most interesting and continuing the relevant speeches or articles or opinions or the like that you are involved with. i said, nope. too busy. i don't want to spend my time reading things i said 30 years ago. it can be very tempting to read what you write. and i did start to look through

articles i had written and letters i had written perhaps and book reviews i had written and the like. and so i started to put together a book which sort of spam 40 years of law and my life in it but also and only on topics that i thought were still relevant. people could care. sometimes it is hard to make that choice. one of the ones that i found hardest to decide on is whether to put in some material on confidential sources of journalists. the reason that it was hard was that there had not been any cases in a few years now involving journalists who had sources, what the government was trying to do, what the courts or requiring, anything like that. i decided, well, it is an

interesting subject. as to recur. you would have thought that this same week that my book came out i was getting phone calls from the press about the administration and the associated press and the administration and fox news journalist and whether we should have a shield law protecting journalists, whether we should decide who a journalist was not. and, you know, chapter eight tucked in their material on that . i have enjoyed through the years dealing in some way of freeing

the speech and freedom of the press. that is in the hand held the book came about. >> when you first read the pentagon papers what did you think and what you think it was so important for the public to have access to what you were able to read. >> twenty-one volumes of material commissioned by the then secretary of defense robert mcnamara. basically put together for him in the late 1960's to sort of answer the question, how did we become involved in the war in vietnam. one could say maybe we should have asked those questions before we became involved with the war in vietnam. put together a lot of scholars

to write this summary, starting in 1945 right after world war ii how of the u.s. gradually and then with ever greater speed became involved in the war in vietnam. and this at a time when the war was not going well trying to get out of it. very, very difficult. and when i was retained in 1971, when the new york times was provided with a copy of all but three volumes of what became known as the pentagon papers by confidence as sources, the government had advised the terms that if they publish this and it was all classified as top secret

that the government would take steps, the government would go to court to get a court order barring the * from doing so. that is sort of the background of the case. every document in all these volumes was classified as top secret which is at least in theory the highest, most secret sort of material. and when i became involved the case was so rushed that the government asked for a higher restraint, a court order, injunction against the times publishing anymore of what was in this study them in bed. when i first read the pentagon papers, i did not read the pentagon papers until the case was over. i read parts of the pentagon papers. and those with the parts that the government claimed were

dangerous because that was the basis of their going to court. they said that if this was published in the middle of the war it will frustrate our efforts to handle the war and otherwise harm national security and so our job in defending the times was to persuade the courts but that was not so or that even if it was potentially so, publish information and use and the like about the war that no injunction should be entered. that is so it all began. that was then thinking from the time it began. >> and why was it so important that the public access? >> what was important about it is that it really showed that

duplicity of the government. mostly it is simply not telling them that we were getting more in baltimore and baltimore involved. and otherwise simply not presenting the full or maybe even anything like the picture of the situation there at the time we began the pentagon papers ended in 1968. that was the cut off. the case was a historical nature , 1971. the pentagon papers went from 1945 to 1968. one of the things we were saying was, this is history. this is what is happening today. you have to worry so much the

something terrible happened on the ground. this seemed one of the most startling things about it. we really lost the battle to persuade the supreme court that no harm would come. the majority of the court. it would be harmful if it why is ugly word sure that it would be very harmful. and when they put that against the first amendment's, congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the press this city can go ahead and publish it. we can't, won't come i don't think we have the power or ought to say we have the power to keep a newspaper from publishing newest. >> you have been one of the strongest proponents and defenders of the first amendment

for his protection. in what circumstances do you think that the first amendment can be restricted? >> we don't live in a world ofh we have more protection of speech against libel law that any country in the world, but we have libel law. we a privacy law. we have law designed to protect national security. we have an espionage act. we have lots of laws which even touch on or intersect with or have tension with the first

amendment. the real issue again and again is not whether there are limits that can be put. the real issue is what is the rule and what is the exception? if the rule is really going to be the press to publish what it likes, you can do what you like by way of verbal expression. you can burn an american flag, you can burn a bible, you can burn the american constitution as a way of expressing how strongly you feel about something or other. but short there can be situations, but there would be very few and they would be very rare. the speech can never be stopped up front before you say it. and even when the government wants to punish you, we have to be very careful not to allow punishment except in cases where the speech is so likely to do harm, such magnitude and so

quickly that we are ready to start of trump the first amendment's. so it happens. important thing is that it does not happen often and that we are very careful, very cautious, very cheery about the circumstances in which we allow that to happen. >> the first amendment has been used as a litmus test for different facets and areas of el some people say today's pornography should not be protected under the first amendment. subjects are physically abused them hurt, and degraded. what is your opinion on this area which some people say is controversial? >> my view is that when people are physically hurt or abused or the like the criminal law comes into play against the people that to a. not people who write.

we do have a law against the city. this gets technical sometimes it except to say we are in new york city tonight. we can walk down the streets. not a whole lot that is not allowed. so there are some things, child pornography, for example. but it is really interesting. the theory on which the supreme court has said that child pornography can be made criminal is not that the public will learn that things or be deeply offended by it. the theory is it hurts the kids are in the pictures. and that we can always protect. so if somebody is doing something to a child or they are beating a child or luring a

child and to some sort of child pornography situation, to protect the child we can take steps and punish people. but we distinguish that usually from making it illegal to take pictures of things which are offensive. a few years ago involved a sort of pictures of animals being tortured. there are men who are sexually aroused by pictures of women in high heels stepping on and killing small little animals. cats and dogs, also -- awful, awful stuff to be doing that is a crime in every state in america. it is a federal crime as well. torturing animals to murdering. it's torture.

murdered. the question before the supreme court was suppose someone takes pictures of them. is that a crime? can congress make that a crime? and by an aide to one vote which means people i've very different political, social, cultural views, the court said that at least this statute congress then passed was too broad and therefore was unconstitutional. violated the first amendment even when the film was of an act which was illegal. and we're the only country in the world that would even think of protecting. pecan as a free country. the western europeans.

that is our first amendment. it goes very, very far into the depiction of events, the articulation of speech which is deeply offensive to us all because the basic disinclination to trust government well-meaning and not in making decisions about what we see, we read, ultimately what we think. he recently prevailed in national and. the landmark case. >> it is really important that we not makes up in my view a lot of people do the political,

social, cultural views of what is allowed to be said. i was not -- i was not a lawyer on that case. the great washington lawyer representing citizens united, but i represented senator mitch mcconnell in that case. conservative organizations. the democratic candidate for president in 2008. the entity, partially funded by corporate money endorsing a

candidate for federal office or denouncing the election of a candidate. for 30 years. could not be funded. and that was the so-called mccain fine gold lot. my view was and is it is inconceivable, movie denouncing a president for canada that the united states could be a crime. that is what the statute did. it made criminal that movie is shown on television or on cable war on satellite if it was shown within that 30 days our 60 day time frame. and i fought and think there is nothing the first amendment is more about than political speech . speech about who to vote against

and that the fact that the money, some of it in this case, but even if it was robbed came from corporations. it should not change that. that is what citizens united stemmed from. that is what citizens in that it was about. most of my life professionally representing corporations that are involved in the delivery of news to people, newspapers, broadcasters, television stations, regimes and the like. no one ever thought that because the corporate form was what they used, the public broadcasting system, the corporation, the new york times was a corporation. no one ever imagined. because that was so there would not receive full fledged high-level, highest level first

amendment protections. so that was where i was coming from. certainly right that there is some conflict between most of my liberal friends and indeed some of my liberal political and social inflammations. but i think in this area there is nothing more important than trying to put the stuff aside, really try to put aside what side your on in the ideological battles of washington. i mean, that is why when one talks about the subpoena being served recently by the obama administration, the obama administration goes to court and gets a search warrant to search the home telephone numbers, the tom e-mails of fox news correspondent in washington.

he tells a federal judge that the correspondence the his slightly guilty of violating the is peanut shack because he has too many questions of someone in the government who was empowered to know certain secret matters. he asked to much. lord demented talking. flattered them. he did all these things that journalists do to get stories. but that could be a crime. that is what they said to persuade a judge to enter an order allowing a search of the e-mails. i think it is really important to to put aside who anyone voted for on something like that and similarly in the citizens united and similarly in the protests around abortion clinics. people who are more liberal tend

to favor or at least women ought to have the right to decide to have an abortion. a great many more conservative people disagree with that. the case comes to the supreme court in which the question is, can you try to persuade a woman on route to a medical facility not to have an abortion? the supreme court and a case arising out of denver said the statute would sit you have to stay 8 feet away and that you could not speak within that area unless yes word. the supreme court said that was constitutional. it was constitutional. conservative members of the court. what about the first amendment? well, i'm sure the more liberal

-- and my reaction was what about the first amendment's. it's one thing to say you can't get in someone's way and you can frighten someone. something else to say that somebody who thinks abortion is murder can try to persuade a woman not to have an abortion. and so i think it is critically important. one overriding plea of -- it is to try to put a a political, social, cultural view to the side when we talk about what rights people have to speak out. the mayor, do you believe this should be any type of limitation of what publicly funded museums can display to the public?

>> it is a hard question. certainly funders can make decisions, content decisions. no one would say that a publicly funded museum that decided all it wanted to do was portraits could be challenged in court by someone saying you're leaving. so that cannot be the law. it is not. mayor giuliani did, he allowed his personal, ideological views, religious views and almost artistic use, forgive me, the pop -- proposition that because some of the pictures, some of the paintings, the works of art in the brooklyn museum at the

time of an exhibition were deeply offensive and they were still lots of people, including one in particular which showed an african woman clad in african garb with elephant down on her outfit, which one would not know unless you knew that it was elephant dung. it just makes everything shiny. in any case you want to know what to do when you go home tonight. but it was made the holy virgin mary. and i'll take him at his word on this. outraged. that great religious symbol should be sullied. public funding for that.

and the reality is public funding does not have to go to that, but you cannot take away because of the ideology. you cannot say, yes, we were going to fund the brooklyn museum, but we're not going to fund it because we are really come are really deeply offended by the message or the like of that work of art. and so that really was a great challenge. had we lost it, had the court said that in effect the mayor could do that, it would have put at issue not just paintings but books as well. suppose the mayor were to say, i don't like a book with the same picture in it and the public library. whenever.

that sort of thing was just at war with the first amendment and the notion of freedom of expression, freedom of thought and letting people make up their own decisions. we have reached a critical error. >> could you describe your argument and why judith miller formally of the new york times and formerly of time magazine, should presence be exempt from testifying before a grand jury? >> it was not the most successful argument as reflected in the fact that judith miller spent 88 days in prison after made the argument. the public can't learn certain things unless journalists can be

named and kept because there aren't certain matters, whistleblower-like matters, other matters of high importance . the fund-raising. they believe the promise to be no one will tell a have a shell lawyer in new york. most of its half share of laws. meaning just that, she'll journalists against having to reveal confidential sources when they're engaged in news gathering. we don't have a federal seal law when is the united states government or someone in federal court.

the reason that cap one -- no federal protection as such apart from what other protection the first amendment gives. and in the grand jury context so far there has not been much protection in that area. that is the case right now in the court of appeals for the fourth circuit. maryland and states around there in which a judge did find that in that context of a leak investigation that led journalists could refuse to reveal the name of the person or information about the person who provided information.

that is on appeal now when we will see how that goes. but certainly as a general proposition, the notion that journalists require protection of a significant level to enable them to do there work is the one that i believe in very strongly. ..

>> what would you like to abolish? white? >> of what i found offensive was the case which was of the 2000 election the into the vote counting in florida. it was an opinion without getting into it too deeply

appeared to be written for that case only. a and the majority opinion went very far down the road to say a fact in this case is so extraordinary don't expect this case in the future for anything which is a signpost that it was a difficult opinion for the majority to right. i thought if the court was wrong on a lot of levels of the addition of courage to even hear the case. i think that arose from the state courts of florida should have stayed in the state courts of florida. and the decisions reached their which resulted in more votes being counted.

that is not how the supreme court came out it was not the courts finest hour by any means. >> host: to defend it be one of the greatest proponents of the first amendment has anybody threatened your life if you disagree with their position? >> not that i know of. [laughter] i did have a partner of mine going to court in the "pentagon papers" case how does it feel to represent traders bought dash traitors? with you think people can get along today believe me it was worse in the late '60s and early '70s.

>> host: explain your present position of the wikileaks case. >> i have been very critical of wikileaks. ioc that played the same role as "the new york times" and the "pentagon papers" case. i think they behaved recklessly did reveal the information which could lead to significant harm to individuals and ultimately to the country. and i don't believe wikileaks is engaged what i would call journalism. not because i disagree with them but to site one example, when it looks like private manning provided them with over 90,000 and in britain by a the soldiers in

afghanistan then released to the public 70,000 of them, at the very least how many have you read? they said 2,000 but they released 77,000 but they read 2000. but anything in there to threaten personal security. but whatever else you want to say about wikileaks has nothing to do with journalism is. journalism stock will leak -- released documents they write about them the door handle 75,000 pages they have not read. so what about the first amendment?

your have to be a journalist to get first amendment protection. so the fact that i don't think he is a journalist does not begin to raise a question of what certain legal protections they should get if they were accused here. unfortunately they live under the espionage act at a time when the first amendment did not even apply at all. a unwritten very broadly after world war i had ended. so the publication the release of information with the national defense with the editing of "the new york times" to write up at the

department. so all the years of 1918 have been struggling to find a balance that the first amendment protects to do by way of defending selves to take the easy case. the atomic weapons and technology. there is a separate statute with that. there are those that makes it a crime to publish. so i think if there were a case against wikileaks they would have a significant amount of first amendment protection for canadians to the question how far the courts would go to apply the protection and one of the realities we talk about in

moscow there are more or less attractive party is in court. party sitter viewed as more sympathetic. but wikileaks itself is very controversial. to be more liberal wish they had not and i have been so critical with just one example of the difficulties wikileaks would have to persuade the jury that they should be left off. our country alone does a lot

of worse things than wikileaks. in what most of you would think. with the way to protect speech based on their race and religion. with every other democratic country even with those that we would all recognize to be democratic. the most of that comes from the united states because we protect but we have to understand that is part of it to have the first amendment but concerned enough to allow government

even to make the decisions about to some degree the most dangerous speech. with the freedom of expression but then to be legally protected. >> host: what is the greatest challenge of the 21st century going forward? the social media? what do you think the greatest challenge is for the first amendment protection? >> what the answer the easy part first.

because of the internet or new technology they're likely to have war speech in the more protection in some ways what of the great things about the internet where the rich people alrich corporation has a say on the internet. it does not cost anything and if it does to do this or do that we can keep the cost down it is great, great contribution to free expression in the world even that has protected generally very well as we have but the internet we should remember

is also a whole for child pornography and not see speech -- nazi speech where there is sometimes dangerous by other people who share those views. and tend to communicate about it but that said we're is the biggest problem going to come from? i suspect the old threats when the country feels threatened it is very natural. the one of related speech it is perfectly logical to say someone is saying something that you really disagree but

you want to suppress. but then to say in effect that is where americans have chosen not to go that our way is the notion of the marketplace that everybody has to say. so where will the biggest threats come from? when we feel the most threat and whether that is because of the of foreign threats or internal turmoil at home or something to be dangerous but what we feel is a truly dangerous situation to say

that you cannot say that. you're not allowed to say that becomes at its greatest and what we have to do at the same time we really protect ourselves so to really nikko's circumstances to minute speech or suppress speech or punish speech or for speech to limit those situations to the very narrow circumstances so the rule is it is a free country. [applause] >> host: ladies and gentlemen, floyd has agreed to take questions. please come up to the microphone.

>> eight you very much. president obama extremely heavy-handed use at the justice department of criminal charges och against the associated press and the most in the news lately. white you think he is taking such a heavy handed approach and engaging in the prosecutorial conduct against the media that seems to be against the of what the first amendment was created and how did you see it to we resolved? >> there is no prosecution

of the associated press. i know what you mean by the question but it is important to be clear to be accused but they're not a criminal risk for anything at all. but what the administration did, what the department of justice did was basically in the course of a leak investigation to do the end run of the protection of the justice itself had said they will abide by. so instead of sitting down with the ap to work out some way, i doubt that there could have been no way to get the information they needed to allow the ap to go to court, you will have a

neutral decision maker, a judge. instead of that they went to the telephone company. they serve a subpoena on the telephone company and basically they got all the information they wanted about telephone calls to and from over 100 reporters over a two month period and how long those calls were all over the telephone data. i do think that was a and abuse of power and i think results in inconsistent ways with the affirmative justice own regulations to show in the negotiating process with the journalistic organization unless doing so

would interfere with the integrity of the investigation itself. i have anything to do with this of the integrity of the investigation but then they p would have gone to court and some judge would have to site -- decided. you, in asking why they did it there are people that speculate that democratic presidents don't like to mix it up with the defense entities like the cia or nsa or the department of the defense itself with its thoughts on national-security issues. also, this was the situation

where a leak to investigation was appropriate. there are situations in which someone in the government provides information they are not allowed to give which genuinely threatens national security. but it seems in this case but the fox correspondent the administration went well beyond the bounds they should have and are taking the criticism they deserve. a final thought, this is an area that i think criticism really matters. people talk criticism of this or that i think it will make a difference settle think the administration enjoys the situation with most of it is the friends denouncing about the whole

situation and i really hopeful to end up with more enforceable rules within the department of justice and maybe windup although i have my doubts with the shield law to protect the press even in situations like this >> with the difficulty of to only lines in the first demand cases first is to the pictures with what most people view as to the offensive messages and ways to deliver those political or the speech by what they wear?

>> a very good question. [laughter] schools are easier. they are easier because the court has said we do have indoctrination where the ada is to teach students certain things and not to teach certain other things. said there is more room for discipline we just don't let kids get up and scream in the middle of the class. but what the supreme court has said it is there is a kid that came to school wearing the black armband to

protest the war in vietnam that a bus interferes with the teaching process, it was first amendment protected. so the question arises if that kid has taken federates flag or the anti-gay message, what can or should the school to? my comment is soft and easy that if all possible issued use it as a way to teach rather than suppress speech. if all possible. so if there is no immediate harm as a result it is such

a hard question because the harm that could be done to children by words coming by pictures to say certain things you prepare an area that is much more difficult than simply saying for the adults, that is just the country that we live than. it is a free society and you can feel bad sometimes but the children can be affected in ways that are lasting. i have not answered the question but that is as far as i will go. the other is a supreme court case that decided has the

same vote to film this horrible torture of small animals and 1,000 feet away people in the morning with the death of their son who died in in the guinness and -- afghanistan they had signed up the down seeing the dead soldier they did not even know it basically saying he deserved to die because to -- america is to excepting of a people that they call fags common not only did he deserve to die but other people ought to

die as well because of their sexual orientation. the supreme court wrote the opinion that i think would have been unthinkable 20 years before because it is so protective of the first amendment liberal and conservative members of the court with the eight / one vote the supreme court said covering their nose and holding their breath said this is speech about politics and public affairs speaking about public issues what to make of those and distasteful and beverages in to use even more harsh words this is this a long dash

this speech that we protect the most policy like decisions. i agree with that opinion with this case because outrageous does not begin to state it. to add one more thing they follow the rules the police told them where to stand in they stood there. they did not go to the church. wherever they said they could be they were. and that affected the court a lot. >> host: any more

questions? >> i thought what you said about wikileaks was interesting because for me is where it starts and ends so if they released documents they have not even read a the fact they have not read them they don't know if it will harm anybody but who are they to judge for the pentagon? you can write a nice piece -- paper but it is speech. >> with respect the important question there is a similar question related to the "pentagon papers" case the government said you are these people? for the year times to decide

what is national security are not? the answer was that there are not entitled to use the documents but the source was made available in they could use them a and the court made clear there were some circumstances in which using them with even more of what the court said that they violated the espionage act to allow them to publish to go to court against them that is what wikileaks is afraid of. now no one is able to keep them to say what it once in the sophisticated way they have of avoiding the

limitations of what they have to say said the you answered your question is if it ever came to court the question is to are they to decide but a trial where there is a decision made how dangerous of what the release was. i left out some of the stuff released i think it's had a very good impact on society. but that question of how bad or how harmful does it have to be is one that is at the center.

>> this is slightly from another question but what about those states that have the of bullying laws? internet or schools are different environments? what is your feeling about that? >> i do seeing a nearly drawn voting law is constitutional. to put it this way, we have always said that certain types of speech are not protected by the first amendment of what is called a true threat to the government can play a role with the first amendment if i mean it. if it is a joke ryan one stage, that is something

else but there are threats which no one would argue better protected but the question with the bullying law is king you drafted broadly enough but avoid the terrible danger of the law that includes that those two steps farther than they should. but i think though bullying laws drafted well can help the system. >> this is related what is the current state where pure speech every sister sexist

nature but not threatening is with the harassment claim in the workplace? >> to talk about speech that ordinarily would be fully protected with the first amendment. but in the context of which as a precondition of the employment. that has generally held to be that. the courts are nowhere near deciding that question we have laws that try to do both things and with our

laws against discrimination or workplace harassment which on the face are perfectly constitutional was just the example that you offer there will be cases just as they think there will be cases about economic speech the stock market and the like i think we'll have more protection than what people think right now. but that is for another speech in a few years. >> with those restrictions on campaign finance should

be allowed under the first amendment if any? >> first the restrictions of the sort that require disclosure with how much money and to whom our constitutional and i believe citizens united made that clear. that is the beginning of it. under current law cover contributions can still be limited but expenditures cannot for the individual or the corporation to give to a political party or candidate with the supreme court said so far to spend your own

many as you liked. so long as it is an accord needed for the candidate. that has been almost a joke the way it is not enforced but the theory in any event was to bring it on your own you cannot correct yourself every kinky money from being spent on hugh to vote for in the first place is corruption but the reality is of actual corruption or quid pro quo, the reason

that mayor bloomberg with which manages $70 million in his campaign the supreme court said you cannot correct yourself. so if you are really concerned about what the supreme court has said that it just isn't fair or is not right or equal to have some people have so much power and some people so little that is inconsistent with the first amendment and the supreme court said it is alien to the first amendment to try to deal with the implementation issue by limiting speech and i add to that the usual way to impose

that if you think some people have too much money or too much say if you want to increase taxes and increase taxes if you want to have powerful antitrust laws, do that the first amendment does not require that but if you have got them people with a lot of money with of the things that you cannot do keep them from talking to get the message out as much as they want with as much influence. the final thought. one that is for or against

is how much of the money was spent. [laughter] it does give a little hope with the final and final thought we are in new york city tonight. we know who will win interstate and inner-city but the week before the election it was a first amendment all there was political ads but with the first amendment perspective there is the obama ad, and the rodney, and then another and then the save and run the ad.

[laughter] i know anybody that felt more liberated than the people with the election was over but from my perspective that is okay. from the first amendment perspective. to have the speech to let it out. >> my question has to do with employers and employees i just noticed to make a response but to put in the profile of the speech is protected my thought is now promoted from anyone else but then they are fired one week later or the case the

sheriff of the town thought the employees voted for another candidate to like the facebook page but they said it is under poor performance of whether your thoughts on that? >> from the first amendment perspective it is interesting the startlingly different. it is a projected one against employers italy protects against the government the first amendment exists to protect from the government. the other countries have much more protection the free speech of employees against the employer but with issues like this to

live in the society where employment is at will, you cannot fire them for some awful reasons if you don't like that political view. so employees who have their years expressed on twitter or otherwise often wrong about it. for example, something i have seen again and again employees is in the mails on the company-owned computer. the most commonplace and

then lawyers like me. [laughter] are demanded to turn over all the males this person or that group for the whole company to have discussions were some of these females are very personal. some of our relationships between people, children or political views in the answer is we're not interested. send them over. so there is very little for the first amendment protection unless you work for a the government or the government like entity.

but if you do the world really does change. on the one hand there are limits on the rights of government employees with the fear they are government employees we'd want them to do certain types of work to be involved in politics that is what they said in the reform effort years ago but the one thing that is good or clear know if he can make decisions about anything like that based on the politics or the political views of their employees.

with that controversy with the internal revenue service has a lot of power and authority but there is no argument you cannot even make the argument with the political views of the taxpayer. it is off the table and indefensible. so when something comes up up, if it comes above the other context it is just part of life in america. >> ladies and gentlemen, on that night -- on that note floyd has agreed to sign his book. it is just a breath taking book i would encourage you

to have their books signed in if you can just remained seated for 20 seconds in the last question was this more challenging and detaining them the supreme court? [laughter] >> guest: certainly much more relaxing. [laughter] [applause] >> were the most brilliant scholar at one dash scholars as nation has had that has had impact on many of our lives on a regular basis. thank you

>>. [laughter] it is about time. thank you. that was a great turnout. state you. [laughter] >> what a great crowd. it was awesome. >> our you? good to see you.

>> thank you for coming out i have had different turns of events. this is the best so far. the first is wide degree had such a good turnout. >> first of all, i a work here and thank you so much for coming out to support my friend with the launch of his new book. we have a privilege to go to the white house web site. [laughter]

every morning whether tax store video but every day it helps to tell a story in the federal bite to introduce marty matt. [applause] >> thank you so much for coming. this is an incredible turn out to. and as on fox news was one of his interviews and i said what we do it he said he is just willing to host a. [laughter] so thank you so much.

>> and we want to start that we were in support and also your book of front thank you so much for doing that we have about 200 people to sponsor also with the waiting list so you keep in order the book and then you can go to the page tonight it is great to be here we wanted to sell out every place it is sold. we're so proud of you and

with the staff that supported us for eight years. [applause] >> we have the most wonderful sponsors to support us in the queue to make a possible. [applause] >> first of all, thank you david for hosting the event it is overwhelming to see everyone here. most of all to respond times

the weather got the message. [laughter] it is wonderful. i cannot thank you ef. i appreciated i never thought something like this could happen to the ordinary guy but to all of you out there, especially those that work with the administration to help me with my success i am overwhelmed by what i would like to do i am more comfortable behind the camera then in front of it. i'd like to show you some quick photos to take our favorite photo from each chapter what is the favorite? i will pick a photo.

[laughter] chapter one. and this is called the beginning it you know, how timely president bush was he would start his meetings early on time early. so with the first administration. chapter to is called life in the bubble by the way it is not representative of the relationship. don't get me in trouble. this is at buckingham palace

the president was clowning around for that camera and he had a great sense of humor. buckingham palace is the same as the white house but bigger. [laughter] chapter three, whenever the two presidents were together you get that magical moment you have the history the only second son of the president to become president one of the first things i learned is if both turnaround. [laughter] so i would say president 41 or president 43. chapter four this is one of my favorite photos of the president of the ranch something about this pitcher you cannot see the barney is

sitting on his lap. chapter five is online 11. this is critical if you notice the clock on the wall at 9:25 a.m. the president was so focused to prepare for a statement and at this moment on the television but they are replaying the video of the second tower in the terrific image of the fireball and we had not seen it at this time since then they alerted everybody in the room and the president turned around to see the image that burden to everyone's memory. chapter six come with this in terms of intensity, this

is the moment after the president decided to make the trip to iraq. he made that decision in the situation room moments earlier and i was asked at the beginning of the meeting and photographed the president and i notice he was very emotional i did what was happening exactly see you can see that decision is on his face he said eric a. interested in history? all i could say is yes, sir, he said the pictures you're taking are very important here in this situation and on the south lawn as he said that out of the quarter of my eye secretary rumsfeld then vice president danehy walked out and they were deciding on the timing of

the start of the war. chapter seven. i visited nearly 70 countries with president bush when he went to close above there was a small town with the first american president you can see it is such a unique moment. [laughter] i assure the secret service. [laughter] the final chapter is called the spread to the finish this is the moment for the left at one dash midi in the oval office for the very last time i was there eight years earlier to the day when the president walks to the door for the first time

and through the years and wondered what would that moment be like? emotional? crying and hugging but it was very simple the president about 8:00 put his coat on and walked out without turning back. that is my a neece slide show. [applause] again i want to thank all of you for coming here and i want to give a special thanks to mary. [applause] who has been dynamo with the press and is also. thank you. figure for communal.

>> when did we reach a point to have a certain philosophy because of the color of your skin? when did that happen? [applause] and a reporter once asked me i talk a lot about race and i said. [inaudible] i said and it takes someone to the operating room and opened the scalp i am operating of the things that makes them who they are. the cover does not make them who we are. when will we understand that?

>> due to do try filing bankruptcy you we have programs that have aired recently about american cities and some of the issues they face. we will start with the book detroit disassemble books of the industrial collapse. the pictures show the architectural decay in the city and is interviewed by the pulitzer prize-winning poet eric levine. >> did not occur to me when i was doing. as a young kid hired, you look to the punch press sort sticks ian stones are you press the button and it comes down. and he said to me what a remaking here?

a perfectly reasonable question. i unsaid by making $2.35 per hour and i don't know what you are making. [laughter] he said no no. what remaking at of this year battle? and had not occurred to me as a person working to even think of it. . .